The Joy of Conservatism

Often I have to explain to inquirers that Touchstone is a conservative
ecumenical journal. For many, the word ecumenical
immediately indicates otherwise. “You are either one thing or the other:
which is it?” someone might ask. How can you be both ecumenical and
orthodox? This is like being a journal of broad narrow-mindedness or inclusive
exclusivity—perhaps edited by a liberal conservative or a cheerful curmudgeon.
We seem to defy easy stereotyping.

We have this problem, in part, because conservatism usually is caricatured
as close-minded, which is nearly the same as defensive or reactionary. The
essence of such conservatism to most people is the unwillingness to change.
In contract, liberals are open-minded and willing to change. Liberals are
trying to dismantle what is obsolete and make room for something better; conservatives
stubbornly defend the old ways and try to keep things as they are. Conservatives
also appear to be arrogant, trying to impose their way on everyone else because
they know better. But are these caricatures accurate?

Recently my daughter, Sharon, a student at an evangelical college and a member
of one of the older liturgical churches, was challenged by a classmate: “How
can you stand it, doing the same old liturgy that has been around for hundreds
of years, when there is so much contemporary worship available? It seems awfully
narrow-minded to be confined to the same old thing; you need to be more open-minded.”
Sharon, confused about what to think, said to me, “I don’t think I am narrow-minded
at all, but what about what my classmate said?”

I knew she was not narrow-minded, but that caricature fit so easily. Since
she was committed to keeping to a traditional worship, she couldn’t be open-minded
about throwing it aside for something more contemporary. Those who are willing
to change over for contemporary worship are obviously open-minded on this
issue. But are those who do not wish to change to contemporary worship and
wish to practice the same liturgy necessarily narrow-minded? I told her, “Give
me a minute, and I am sure that we can turn this accusation on its head.”

“The problem,” I said, “with contemporary worship is not
that it is more open but that it is too closed.” After all, it is modeled
on what is culturally fashionable to Americans in 1993. In twenty years it
will be dated and unappreciated by the next generation. There will be a new
contemporary worship for 2003, but some will still be doing the worship style
of 1993, just as today some are stuck in the worship styles of the 1970s.
Thus we end up with a cafeteria of dated worship “styles,” cut
off from each other because they reflect changing cultural phases. Designing
a worship service for contemporary tastes, while appearing open-minded, can
actually be an exercise in narrow-mindedness, especially when it is cut off
from the historical tradition of the Church.

Worship based on the ancient liturgies of the Church allows the traditionalist
Christian, if she has the right spirit, to be infinitely more open-minded
about worship than her contemporary-minded friends. This is because the liturgy
of the Church was shaped not by one generation, but by many generations. She
can even do one better: she can be more—to use liberal jargon—multi-cultural
and pluralistic than they, since the liturgy was shaped not only in one particular
culture, but in many cultures—by Old Testament Jews, Jewish Christians,
other Semites, Greeks, Romans, North Africans, Slavs, and (in our culture)
by English-speaking saints, and on and on.

Granted, some music may change, some practices may be added, some modified,
but all in a way internally consistent with the shared experience of the Church
and not in response to cultural demands or fads. Some music for the ancient
texts of the Church is medieval, and some was written in the last several
hundred years, and some was written in the last ten years. The texts themselves
have come from different sources over a wide geographic and chronological
range. The liturgy of the Church is infinitely more multi-cultural than anything
contemporary possibly could be.

“However,” I warned Sharon, “there is a serious difference between being
a true conservative and being one by temperament only.” The latter is naturally
cautious, perhaps even afraid of change or just lacking the energy to change;
perhaps he is just afraid of others’ opinions. That is not what I meant. True
conservatism seeks to conserve the liturgy not because of fear of change but
simply because it is rich, multi-layered, diverse in the sense that it has
been the work and practice of a great diversity of the faithful. It is good
and worth preserving. The true conservative holds the tradition for the sheer
enjoyment of its rich goodness. This good deposit itself is not narrow, but
like the Bible, it is made up of a multiplicity of witnesses to the revelation
of God, from Moses, David, Deborah, Solomon, Isaiah, the corporate witness
of the community of Israel, and the communities of the early Church, from
the Middle East, Europe, North Africa and Asia.

Moreover, it is not the conservative who is arrogant, staunchly defending
the traditional. Granted, most fallen humans are naturally proud, whether
they are orthodox and belong to the right group or are liberal and see better
than small-minded conservatives. Both, like the Pharisee, thank God that they
are not like the other.

But as a conservative, I told Sharon, I can take no personal pride in orthodoxy—it
is not something of my own making. Indeed, I am grateful not to be in the
unenviable position of having to defend the New Testament writings and Creeds
as something I just made up. This is one reason why conservatism has a cheerful
side to it—I am relieved of having to defend this tradition as a personal
creation. We conservatives simply have been given something by those who were
followers of Christ, and we feel the weight of it. Those who fight it find
the yoke to be a burden; those who embrace it find it liberating and discover
the “commandments are not burdensome.”

Those who criticize conservatives must understand that we are loath to change
what Peter or Paul wrote, not because we are stubborn by nature but because
we have been told we have to be stubborn about certain things. If it were
up to me, Paul would not have said certain things, Peter would have
written a different letter, and John’s Gospel might have a different tone.
But it wasn’t left up to me, and it hasn’t been left up to anyone else that
I know of.

So I am grateful that I did not make up any of the tradition. When I defend
it, my ego is not on the line. Now, while I may feel the weight of Paul when
he speaks, the burden of proof is clearly on those who would dismiss him along
with the countless witnesses to his authority in the Church. One may as well
argue for the repeal of the United States Constitution and Declaration of
Independence on the grounds that Thomas Jefferson and company were ignorant
of true democracy. The true conservative does not invent his religion or decide
what best suits his personal needs. He humbly receives the Tradition that
includes the biblical instructions, “Keep it and hand it down.” We are loath
to change what is simply set down for us in Scripture for our good.

But how do we relate and properly defend tradition to the modern world? We
conservatives often either appear proud and arrogant when presenting our orthodoxy,
or we withdraw with a false humility, saying that we do not want to impose
orthodoxy on anyone—we want people to discover it for themselves. With
Elijah, we fall to hand-wringing, griping that we alone are left holding the
faith, when God knows we are not.

Another shortcoming of the conservative is that the evidence for the good
of his tradition is often missing. We pride ourselves on keeping the form
of the tradition while avoiding its life-changing power. When we have not
been inwardly transformed by the grace and joy of orthodoxy, we cannot share
our faith in the grace and joy of the Spirit.

If we conservatives do not derive joy and benefit from what we are conserving,
then we must not be very open-minded toward the tradition itself, and we are
also unwilling to be changed by it. If so, we have taken the conservative
habit of not changing things one step too far. In this, God might prefer that
we become more liberal.

“The Joy of Conservatism” first appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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